Global militarisation

The current priority of the dominant security actors is maintaining international security through the vigorous use of military force combined with the development of both nuclear and conventional weapons systems. Post-Cold War nuclear developments involve the modernisation and proliferation of nuclear systems, with an increasing risk of limited nuclear-weapons use in warfare – breaking a threshold that has held for sixty years and seriously undermining multilateral attempts at disarmament. These dangerous trends will be exacerbated by developments in national missile defence, chemical and biological weapons and a race towards the weaponisation of space.

Multiple Futures Project - Navigating Towards 2030

Issues:Competition over resources, Global militarisation, Marginalisation

In March 2008, the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation called for NATO to consider "that different views of future worlds will strengthen our endeavor to develop a more rigorous and holistic appreciation for future security challenges and implications for the Alliance."

The result, a Multiple Futures Project (MFP), acknowledges that in a rapidly changing global security environment, the landscape we know may be very different in 2030. It puts forward four plausible worlds upon which structured dialogue on  risks and vulnerabilities can occur: Dark Side of Exclusivity, Deceptive Stability, Clash of Modernites, and New Power Politics.

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India's 21st-century war

Paul Rogers | Open Democracy | November 2009

Issues:Climate change, Global militarisation, Marginalisation

Tagss:India, Maoists, Naxalite insurgency

In an age of climate change and deepening inequality, the spreading Naxalite insurgency in India - not al-Qaida - may show the world its future.

This article was originally posted on openDemocracy.

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AfPak-Iraq: wrong war, right path

Paul Rogers | Open Democracy | October 2009

Issue:Global militarisation

The term "global war on terror" has long since been dropped from the United States's official vocabulary. The phrase that came to be proposed as a replacement even when George W Bush was still in office, the "long war", has similarly fallen by the wayside, to be succeeded in March 2009 by a less overtly combative Pentagon formulation: "overseas contingency operation". But it is easier for the Barack Obama administration to redefine the conflict it is involved in than to change the bleak current reality in three main flashpoints - Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq.

This article was originally posted on openDemocracy

 

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UK Opposition Parties outline potential Defence Spending Cuts

Issue:Global militarisation

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable and Shadow Chancellor George Osborne have both highlighted potential defence spending cuts should their parties come to power. In a pamphlet for the think tank Reform, Cable identified nine ideas for budget savings, which included scrapping the Trident nuclear missile system as well as other defence procurement programmes including tranche three of the Eurofighter aircraft. Osborne, following a speech at a conference organised by the Spectator magazine, echoed Cable in citing the Eurofighter project and also identified the project to build 2 new aircraft carriers and a £2.7 billion order for 25 A400 transport aircraft as specific potential savings.

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A world in need: The case for sustainable security

Paul Rogers | Open Democracy | September 2009

Issues:Climate change, Competition over resources, Global militarisation, Marginalisation

A hurricane of crises across the world - financial meltdown, economic recession, social inequality, military power, food insecurity, climate change - presents governments, citizens and thinkers with a defining challenge: to rethink what "security" means in order to steer the world to a sustainable course.  The gap between perilous reality and this urgent aspiration remains formidable.

SustainableSecurity.org Associate Editor Paul Rogers, highlights the need for fresh, effective and transforming approaches to security. 

This article was originally posted on openDemocracy

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